What do Deadpool, Don Quixote, and Dante Alighieri all have in common?
by Bloofer
Summary: Deadpool's healing factor, along with the 'big wigs in the sky', keep him from his beloved Death. When he's caught up in the works of a reality warper with little-to-no control over her powers, he has a very stupid idea. Set in the Marvel universe but more in the outlying suburbs. Not all mutant/ates are saving the world, you know.
1. A surreal beginning

'Ya know, I can't help but feel everything's taken on a surreal quality…'

The pony Deadpool was riding snorted as if to say, 'Ya think?'

They were ambling down a shady mountain path. It was night but the moon was bright enough to bestow a silver filter to everything. Mist had begun to gather in the grey trees that flanked the path.

'I mean, Domino and me assassinating a mutant vampire noblewoman in the Spanish mountains? Yeah, pretty mainstream. Finding out that our contact was also a shape-shifting vampire and who back-bites me after mission accomplished—'

The pony stopped with a loud and serious clop.

'Okaaay, so I ignored your payment. I guess that's also mainstream. But you got what you wanted eventually, right?'

The pony toss its head, pleased, and broke into a happy trot.

'Woah, watch it!' he called, gripping her mane. 'Honestly, why can't you shape-shift back into that half-bat thing so we can _fly_ down the mountain?'

The pony slowed to an exaggerated, feeble crawl.

'Oh, too tired. Right. Still, can't you walk any smoother? This suit doesn't provide a lot of padding on bareback, ya know.'

The pony rumbled and tried its best to 'glide' down the rocky, overgrown path.

'Come to think of it, what's this like for you? Most women don't respond as well as you when I ask them for a ride.'

The pony's ears flicked back; not liking where this was going.

'Do sensations in your shape-shifted body parts correspond to your original human ones? Or do you feel _pony feels_? For instance…'

The pony froze as she felt a hand slap her croupe.

'Does that feel like "giddy-up" or "girl, you fin—" HEY!'

The pony bucked the pervert off with an enraged neigh.

By the time Deadpool had twisted and landed like a startled cat onto the path, she was gone. The mist in the trees had cleared. And, when he rose to his feet, he saw that the hoof-prints just…stopped.

'Forget surreal,' he muttered, 'this is just silly.'


	2. All just a dream? No

The next morning, in one of the staff kitchenettes of a teaching hospital...

'Vera, are you eating take-out?'

The medical intern shrank back from her doggy-bag and shielded her face with her hands. 'Don't look at meee!' she cried demoniacally.

'Is that Mexican? Vera, you can't even cope with paprika!'

Vera slumped. 'I've been possessed by a new hunger, Patrice. It all happened last night in my dream.' She stared hauntedly into the middle distance.

Patrice played along. 'Are you faking a flashback?'

'Yes.'

'Shall I make the flashback sound?'

'Please.'

Patrice waved her arms as if rippling the scene. 'Whoosh…'

Vera laughed and sent a fond look to her peer before getting back into character. 'I was part of a team of assassins. We were two women and one man. Actually, the others were assassins; I was more of a support member: reconnaissance, infiltration, that sort of thing.'

'Ooo, did you wear a cat-suit?'

'No, I was dressed like a human being. The man did, though. Covered every inch of his body. But not in a weird way; it was like a ballet costume: breathable, very revealing. Red and black...'

Vera shook her head and got back on topic: 'We'd just got back from a job. It had gone well and we were discussing payment. When I went to name my price, however, the man brushed me off.'

'That bastard! What did you do?'

'I was a vampire; does that give you a clue?' Vera grinned and whispered the next part, 'I slunk up behind him, leant over his shoulder, and blew gently on the corner of his lips (his mask was skin-tight so they were clearly defined). He collapsed in my arms: asleep. I must've grown several feet by then because he weighed little more than a shawl. Then I sprouted fangs and latched onto his neck.'

'What did it taste like?'

'It wasn't so much the taste but the whole act that was good.'

'Vera, you sadist!'

'Only in my dreams, Patrice. Anyway, by this time, the other team-member had taken notice and attacked. But I was an old-school, Dracula-like vampire and so I just flew off into the sky with the man in my arms.'

'Could Dracula do that?'

'Not _really_. He _could_ shape-shift but…it's complicated. Anyway, I flew up to some kind of mountain manor where I could eat in peace. But when I looked down at my arms, I found the man gone. Instead, I was holding fleshy tortillas and blood-red chilli.'

Patrice gave Vera a strange look. 'Did…you just associate Mexican food with flesh and blood?'

'Yes!' Vera said delightedly, 'It turned out I never wanted to eat the guy; I just wanted to drain a little of his blood in order to gain some magical regenerative ability he had. With that acquired, I no longer had to leech off other people's life-force in order to survive. I was virtually cured of vampirism, with the only side-effect being an occasional craving for Tex-Mex.'

Vera got up and took her dishes to the sink (the thought of eating the greasy food with her fingers had been too much to bear). As she washed, she concluded her story. 'After that we both walked away happy: I got my cure, the man got to keep his life, _and_ he got a bonus pony ride when I shape-shifted into a cob to carry him back down the mountain.'

'Wow, all I dream about is my old lecturer pulling my brain out through my nose to examine my thoughts for plagiarism.'

'They can't hurt us anymore, Patrice.'

'Only in our dreams, Vera.'


	3. Is this getting meta? No

Three-quarters of a lunar month later, in a moderately priced apartment...

If she had known that, one day, when she turned around from her bathroom mirror, make-up finished, that a red-and-black ninja would be leaning in her doorway, Vera would've spent the money on a larger mirror. And a laser. One whose ray she could reflect in the mirror to blind or incinerate the intruder.

As it happened, the almost cat-like scream she gave and the jolt that slammed her back to the sink did little to faze the figure.

'Hi,' he waved amiably.

'Uh,' she croaked.

'Remember me?'

Vera was in a daze: distracted by his height, his build, and distracted by the dual firearms and sword-arms he had strapped to his body.

'In Spain? We were assassinating that mutant matriarch? You were Domino's agent on the inside?'

That dream had ended. Why was he here? How did he find her? Vera squinted, examining him.

'Come on! You don't remember how she tried to kill you for giving me this?' he lifted the elastic hem of his mask where it met with his clavicle, exposing a cicatricose patch of skin punctured by a pair of perfect little holes.

Ah. There was the loose end. Being a Dracula-like vampire, she had given a Dracula-like bite (which possess significant repercussions). But still, this loose end did not seem to merit a continuation of the dream's plot. She had gotten away with worse. What had happened? Why was her subconscious prolonging this character's existence?

Vera looked at his wound intently, arms folded, she found herself stepping closer, before realising who she was with and skipping back to the sink.

The ninja visibly pouted. 'You don't remember anything? Not even our pony ride?'

The eidetic memory flashed across her mind. She couldn't help it: she snorted and held her head in embarrassment.

Then suddenly her feet were off the ground and it was very hard to breath. 'You remember :D !'

Arms pinned to her sides, her eyes locked on the hilts of the two eastern swords slung crosswise over the ninja's back, Vera was receiving her very first bear hug. She felt some relief. If he was hugging her, that meant he wasn't going to kill her. Possibly.

Now he was spinning her around and she was getting dizzy. Then he was waltzing out the bathroom with her in a bridal carry and she was getting worried. Then he was flinging her onto her bed and she was getting terrified.

But things didn't escalate from there. He simply sat on the edge of her bed with his back to her.

'OK. I need you to do it again.'

With his posture ludicrously resembling a woman wanting her girlfriend to do her hair, he held up the hem of his mask and tilted his head, offering up his neck, 'Dig in!'

'What?' Vera breathed out.

'Bite me. Suck me dry- like an orange.'

Vera went cold.

The man peeked over his shoulder, 'Oh, did you want a fresh patch?' He exposed the other side of his neck instead. Then, stiffening, as if a thought occurred to him, he turned, 'Or did you want to sample somewhere else?'

Vera cleared her throat.

'Come on! Don't be shy. Oh, please don't be shy.'

'Why do you want me to do this?'

He drew out one of his guns and blew off the middle finger of his other hand. The, he held out his bloodied fist towards her cringing, ear-covering self. She watched, unblinking, as a new phalange began to sprout from the jagged proximal digit of the old. She watched him wriggle it through the frayed hole of his glove as it grew.

'Ooh. Ah. Sorry,' he said, realising he had just flipped her off with his regenerated finger.

'I can stick out a new finger in a second but these,' he pointed to the punctures on his neck, 'won't even fill in. They don't bleed, they don't sting. They're like holes punched through paper_..._' he said with awe. 'But that's not the best part. Uh-uh. I'm still mildly _anaemic_. I should be able to pump new blood out as fast as a _harem_ of vampires could suck it! But with you, my mutated marrow's just misbeheavin', like it thinks

_ you're kisses are worth waiting for_

_believe me.'_

Having come down from crooning this last bit, he continued: 'So, if you could just finish what you started, that'd be great.'

'I can't,' Vera stated.

'What is it against some ethic of yours? Lady, you'd be committing a crime if you didn't do this. Lots o' people want me dead. Good people. Lawful people.'

'No, I mean I physically can't.'

'Oh.'

He paused.

'Ohhh...!'

He whipped around, now crouching on the bed like a frog. 'You gotta be in the _moood_.'

He began a slow, predatory crawl towards her. She crept back from his advance, coiling up, contemplating the use of her bedside lamp as a weapon.

'What gets you going? Is it annoying you? I seem to recall you being very annoyed last time you did it.'

'Or is it bloodlust? You didn't get any action on that job did you? That leave you frustrated?'

'Because, sweetheart, if it's either of those things, there ain't a man better qualified to deliver!'

Vera decided not to provoke the psychopath with an attack, so she went with mystique. Slowly, she placed her hands on his shoulders, her arms strangely still despite the adrenaline suffusing them. She looked him in the eye and, with the lightest of touches, pressed him back.

It worked; he complied. But his disappointment and impatience were evident.

'Let me explain,' she said.


End file.
